


Want me to love you in moderation (well, don't you know I wish I could)

by toughluckbuddy



Series: Strangeness & Charm [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Love Spell, M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 01:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toughluckbuddy/pseuds/toughluckbuddy
Summary: The man lying on the examination table looked a little bit like Sasuke.





	Want me to love you in moderation (well, don't you know I wish I could)

**Author's Note:**

> For the rarepair bingo prompts: jutsu accident - Iruka
> 
> Title from Moderation by Florence & the Machine

The man lying on the examination table looked a little bit like Sasuke.

“What the hell did you do?” yelled Iruka. He didn’t think he would ever dare yell at Orochimaru (Sannin! Terrifying snake person! All around creepy murderer!) but he had seen the man failed so many ridiculous experiments since he had been assigned to his surveillance by a way-too-amused Kakashi that he now treated him like one of his worst and least well-behaved students. Which meant a lot of yelling. “We said no more resurrecting people!”

“Well,” said Orochimaru, who didn’t look too bothered. “Maybe it didn’t work.”

Iruka grumbled and leaned over the – sleeping? paralyzed? dead? – form. Who even was he? Another Uchiha?

The man opened his eyes and looked at Iruka, who let out a bloodcurdling scream and almost fell backward in fright. Orochimaru rolled his eyes.

“This is Uchiha Izuna,” he announced with a little hand flourish. Iruka suspected Orochimaru hadn’t killed him yet because, despite the yelling, he quite liked having an audience.

Izuna was sitting up very calmly, looking around the room in a vaguely intrigued way. He was very pretty, with a pale face, delicate features, and those deep black Uchiha eyes.

Iruka didn’t know the exact protocol to adopt in that sort of situation – by which he meant meeting a formerly-dead person – but he decided a little politeness could never hurt, and he certainly couldn’t count on Orochimaru for that, who was already busy writing things down while throwing assessing looks at Izuna.

“Hello there!” he said, feeling a little bit awkward. “I’m Iruka.”

Izuna gave him a dazzling smile. “Hi,” he said, then grabbed Iruka’s chin between his fingers, tilted his head down, and proceeded to thoroughly kiss him.

***

Iruka could tell Kakashi wanted to laugh and it made him want to strangle him. Of course, he would have needed both of his hands for that, and one of them was currently being held by Izuna.

“So you’re telling me _Uchiha Izuna_ , Madara’s little brother and a legendary shinobi who died decades ago, thinks you’re his… what? Boyfriend?”

Orochimaru, who was in the Hokage’s office with them since it was entirely his fault, made an impatient hand gesture, probably at the use of a word as immature as “boyfriend” in his presence. “I was trying to remove the physical limits imposed on resurrected shinobi…” Kakashi and Iruka both gave him a look “… for scientific reasons, and I tried to use an emotional connection to keep him on this plane of existence instead. I wanted to bind him to Konoha as a whole but it seemed to have backfired when the first thing he saw upon awaking was the school teacher.”

Iruka frowned.

“He’s emotionally bonded to Iruka then?” asked Kakashi and Orochimaru nodded. “How do you feel about that?” he then asked Izuna, who hadn’t really said anything much since Iruka had spluttered and blushed after pushing him away in Orochimaru’s lab.

“It seems accurate,” said Izuna, who seemed pretty unconcerned by the conversation. He turned to Iruka. “Can we go now?”

Go where? To do what? Iruka was opening his mouth to ask just that – and also what in hell he was supposed to do with a besotted Uchiha on his hands – when Kakashi said “What happens if we keep them apart?”

Izuna gave him a sharp look and gripped Iruka’s hand a little bit tighter. He didn’t look unconcerned anymore, more like murderous.

Orochimaru was watching him, his head tilted to the side. “I designed a seal that was supposed to keep him physically confined to the village, so I think the effect would be the same as if he left Konoha.”

“Meaning?” asked Kakashi.

“He would die,” said Orochimaru. “Crumble to dust, to be exact.”

Kakashi raised both eyebrows. “Could you fix the seal then?”

“I don’t like dwelling on failed experiments,” said Orochimaru, and Iruka spluttered.

“You’re not going to help?” he asked.

“I was thinking of going away for a little while, actually. Unless I’m a prisoner of this village?” Orochimaru asked Kakashi, who sighed.

“Don’t be dramatic, you know you’re not. Your unwillingness to cooperate is noted though.”

Orochimaru smiled. “I don’t doubt it.”

***

“I can’t believe them!”

“So you said,” said Izuna.

They were at Iruka’s apartment, Izuna sitting cross-legged on the couch and Iruka pacing in front of him, having been dismissed from the Hokage’s office with a shrug and a wish for luck.

“Aren’t you even a little bit bothered by this?” asked Iruka. Seeing Izuna so calm was quickly becoming frustrating.

“Not really. I mean,” his eyes widened “sometimes I think about the fact that I am trapped alone in a future where everyone I know is dead and that my only way out is to run away from you until I go back to dust.” He paused and smiled at Iruka. “But then I look at you and I feel fine.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Iruka. He heavily sat down next to Izuna.

They stayed silent for a little while. Izuna was playing with Iruka’s fingers, which would have been nice if he hadn’t been coerced to do so by a seal gone wrong.

“Maybe we could fix your seal,” mused Iruka. “Let’s have a look at it.”

Izuna removed his shirt and turned around with a bit too much eagerness for Iruka, who blushed. The seal was traced on the center of his back, about the size of Iruka’s hand. He couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but then, he was far from being an expert.

“Do you know anything about seals?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Izuna. He turned his head to look at Iruka. “I’m an expert at genjutsu, taijutsu, kenjutsu and dojutsu though.”

“That’s nice,’ said Iruka.

“And you’re a… school teacher?” asked Izuna politely. He hadn’t put his shirt back on, though Iruka had moved away from his back.

“I’m also a chunin!” he said.

Izuna gave him that dazzling smile again – the one he had had just before kissing him. “Educating the younger generation is important.”

Iruka looked at him suspiciously. “Are you saying that because you think it’s true or because of the seal?”

Izuna thought about it for a few seconds. “I really think that,” he eventually said.

“How can you tell the difference?” asked Iruka, curious.

“I’m the same person I was before,” said Izuna. “I’m just also in love with you now.”

“Don’t say it like that!” yelled Iruka, hiding his face in his hands. “You know it’s not real right? The seal is just making you think it is.”

Izuna shrugged. “Feels real to me,” he said.

***

Living with Izuna was weird in how… normal it felt. They spent their afternoons together at the library, researching fuinjutsu techniques in the hope of fixing the seal, and their mornings apart, Iruka teaching and Izuna exploring Konoha, being gawked at by people, and, according to him, missing Iruka terribly.

Iruka had relented on the third night and allowed Izuna to sleep in his bed, mostly because he was too tired to argue about it any longer. Izuna slept heavily and didn’t move at all during the night, and Iruka often found himself clinging to him in his sleep, embarrassed and annoyed at himself when he woke up.

“I feel like I’m taking advantage of you,” he told Izuna one evening when they were eating in comfortable silence and Izuna laughed at him.

“You’re really not,” he said. “I wish you would.”

Iruka blushed. “I meant emotionally!”

“Because you enjoy my company?” asked Izuna. Iruka nodded. “Because you think I don’t enjoy yours?”

Iruka shrugged aggressively. “How could you? You were – are – an extraordinary shinobi, a hero who fought with and against legends, you…”

“… died a martyr? Spent my whole life at war? Lost friends and family every day?”

Izuna’s tone was light, his expression frighteningly calm. Iruka wondered if he was going to use his sharingans, if he remembered the pain of having both of his eyes removed…

Izuna sighed and shook his head. He looked more like himself when he continued “Your life is… a dream, for me. You don’t worry about the future, you’re useful to your village and everyone likes you.”

Iruka rolled his eyes. “Not everyone likes me, I’m pretty sure Kakashi is actively trying to…”

Izuna cut him off by taking his face in both of his hands. He was always very careful with Iruka, and rarely touched him anymore, not even to hold his hand.

“Your stubbornness is very cute,” he said, and their lips were about to touch when Iruka pushed him away.

“I can’t do that! The seal…”

“That cursed seal again!” Izuna said, moving away from Iruka’s startled face. He had never heard Izuna raise his voice before.

They went to bed in silence, Izuna somber and closed off, and Iruka feeling weirdly guilty, like he had done something wrong instead of refusing to take advantage of a brainwashed man.

When he woke up the next morning, Izuna was nowhere to be found.

***

He was waiting for Iruka outside the school two days later, looking determined and proud.

“Where were you?” asked Iruka. “Are you alright? I thought you were dead and…”

“I took care of it,” interrupted Izuna.

“What?”

“The seal.”

Iruka looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“I don’t want to take off my shirt in front of kids,” said Izuna, and Iruka took him to an unused classroom, frowning all the while. Had the separation affected his head? They hadn’t tried being apart for such a long time before.

“Well?” said Izuna and Iruka raised his head to see his naked back. It was smooth and pale, beautiful. There was no seal on it anymore.

“How did you do it?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t know fuinjutsu.”

Izuna turned around to face him again. He looked a little haughty, which was new. “Of course I know fuinjutsu. It was amateurish work, by the way”

“But…”

“I lied to stay with you.”

“So now…”

“Now I’m telling the truth. To stay with you.”

“I don’t understand. You’re not in love with me anymore is what you’re saying.”

Izuna laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “I told you I could tell the difference between what I was feeling and what the seal was making me feel. Turns out there’s not that much of a difference.”

“Oh,” said Iruka, who was feeling himself becoming redder and redder.

“Well, except that I’m not that much of a cuddler, usually.”

“We barely ever cuddled!” protested Iruka despite himself.

“I could make an effort,” said Izuna with that dazzling smile Iruka liked so much, and he didn’t protest at being kissed this time.


End file.
